I can reveal that I am a direct descendent of someone of similar greatness: Charlemagne, Carolingian King of the Franks, Holy Roman Emperor, the great European conciliator. Quelle surprise!
But we are all special, which means none of us are. In 2013, geneticists Peter Ralph and Graham Coop showed that all Europeans are descended from exactly the same people.
This is merely a numbers game. You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. What this means is that pedigrees begin to fold in on themselves a few generations back, and become less arboreal, and more web-like.
With the advent of cheap genetic sequencing, the deep, intimate history of everyone can be revealed. Plenty of companies have emerged that provide this service, such as 23andMe and Ancestry DNA.
People love discovering that they’re a bit Viking, or a bit Saracen. This is big business nowadays, and some companies spin fabulous yarns about your forebears as marketing devices. The truth is that we all are a bit of everything, and we come from all over. If you’re white, you’re a bit Viking. And a bit Celt. And a bit Anglo-Saxon. And a bit Charlemagne.
So what does this all mean? Ancestry is messy. Genetics is messy, but powerful. People are horny. Life is complex. Anyone who says differently is selling something. A secret history is hidden in the mosaics of our genomes, but caveat emptor.
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